Map:The Dwarven Riddle
The The Dwarven Riddle Scenario is a four-player map that can be played on advanced and expert difficulties. __TOC__ Goals * Reach the Crystal Sanctum ** West side: Destroy the crystals inside the enemy fortress ** East-side: Destroy the crystals inside the enemy fortress * Unlock the crystal magic ** Destroy the crystals in the sequence given by the central crystal ** Use the fire altars at the right time to reduce the enemy's attacking strength * The Master Guardians ** Defend against the Guardians of the crystals Walkthrough This scenario is considered by many to be one of the most difficult in game. This is due to the periodic waves of enemies that are unleashed against the player, requiring speedy cleanup of the enemy hordes and using the brief period of relief to launch offensives before the next wave appears. This map certainly rewards player cooperation and clever card-play combinations, while brute-force play usually ends death by attrition from the hordes of armies that the game throws at the players. Overview and General Tips The first army that arrives five minutes into the game are Bandits, including hordes of Footmen, Shamans, a few Snipers, and Boom Brothers in subsequent waves. Using a Fire Altar will eliminate the current wave at the cost of bringing Demons instead. Only a few Demons will appear in the first round, but subsequent rounds will bring to bear hordes of Nightcrawlers, Ashbone Pyros, Void Maws, and in further rounds, Wrathgazers. Using another Fire Altar will obliterate the current round of demons, and bring down the wrath of Fire Elemental Warriors and Hurlers on the players. Teams that quickly use the Fire Altars to preemptively eliminate a difficult horde-wave, followed by a strikes against the crystals often find success here. Each crystal is fortified by patrolling Stonekin guardians and a heavily fortified battery of towers, including multiple anti-air, anti-ground artillery, and general-purpose cannons. Long-range siege units, such as Fire Stalker or Firedancer, and building-stoppers such as Suppression and Sunstriders are good techniques for shutting down the defensive buildings. Players are advised to keep in mind the goal of destroying the crystal; completely obliterating the base surrounding the crystal is often unnecessary, unless the base it is in close proximity to Monuments and Power Wells that the players will be using. Perhaps the most commonly played defense combination on this map is Mark of the Keeper and Stone of Torment. MotK disables enemy squads that rely on ranged and special abilities, while SoT is able to periodically damage an unlimited number of enemies within the tower's range. However, this combination is particularly weak against melee, and is only strong in managing the Demon waves. Finally, SoT damages allied units (but not buildings) as well as enemy units, thus allied armies should be kept away. Advanced The first task for positions 1 and 2 is to destroy the fortress in the southeast corner of the map, while positions 3 and 4 must head directly north to lay siege to the Northwest fortress. The big challenge of this stage is the limitation to first era cards, since further orbs are not available until these fortresses are conquered. Prior to reaching the fortress, the eastern team must fight through a Bandit Artillery and Bandit Sniper Boom Brothers creature, while the western team faces a Bandit Tortugun beast (the latter, although it can kill any Era 1 creature if it gets close enough, uses only melee and can be rooted), but the Bandit Sniper just on its own will one-shot anything in a range that exceeds 50m, so be sure to have at least two creatures if you are planning to run past things to the eastern base). The Bandit Artillery may use their special attack, similar to the Boom Brothers' BOOM! ability, immediately upon engaging players, which can devastate a good-sized army especially if they march in as a column. Advance a single unit or a rapid unit to reset the ability's thirty second timer, and then move in for the kill. Other good techniques are to pull the unit into a Glyph of Frost or Mine trap, or place a Rapid Construction building to tank the creature's damage. Defeating Moloch is slightly easier, since the unit is slow and unable to attack flying units. Thus, Mana Wing is the most common solution, while Ensnaring Roots, Glyph of Frost, or Mine are viable solutions to removing this obstacle. Once all the obstacles have been overcome, eliminating the fortress is the next task. Players should avoid attacking the walls, and instead focus on removing offensive threats and the crystals themselves. Destroying the crystals can be done quickly with a few Mana Wing creatures by destroying the colored crystal indicated by the large, central crystal. Once all four crystals have been destroyed, the enemy walls will crumble, allowing players to quickly mop up the remaining parts of the base and take the first monument. The first wave of the enemy hordes will begin attacking around now if they haven't already. See the general section of the walkthrough for tips. Rewards For completing this scenario, players are granted some PvE Experience Points, Gold, and four Upgrade Cards. }} Solo As with most other maps, the map is changed when only one player starts it, to reduce the available orbs, orbs that would normally be used by other players, when playing solo (an exception is Raven's End, where part of the objectives is to claim all the orbs on the map). The expansion orbs spawn in different places on the map, depending on the starting position of the player. Obviously, the eastern orbs are no good to a player 3 or 4, but they also change depending on which of the two positions are played on each side. A solo player playing position 1 will receive the most northerly of the eastern orbs, near the enemy fortress, with the southern two orbs appearing if position 2 is chosen. A solo player in position 3 will receive the most northerly of the western orbs, with the southern two orbs spawning for position 4. This is of some importance because the layout and even the enemies are different on different sides and different parts of the map, affecting the ease with which a player can gain additional orbs, and which units are most suitable for the task. Apart from the enemies on the way to the fortress, mentioned above, other significant differences include: * Two spawning caves west of the southeastern fortress; the spawns have to pass by the orb and wells there and could potentially destroy them. The northwestern fortress has only one cave, which is not on the way to the southwestern starting base, and enemies completely ignore the orb and wells there. Because of this, a player on the west side can finish the map even with the southern base and other orbs overrun, assuming they start again with only Era 1 units, or their higher era units are still alive. Incubator would be an excellent choice to include in a solo deck, as it provides a failsafe option of a steady stream of Era 3 units, transmuted from Era 1 ones. * An orb and wells to the southwest, appearing for player 4, are up on a ridge; a unit that stands close enough to the ridge wall can claim the orbs without having to run up there. Conversely, the orb should be claimed soon, and the player can not count on the wells at that location, as what makes the well so easy to claim, its proximity to the lower area, also makes it vulnerable to the attack waves, which can and probably will repeatedly destroy the wells. The attack waves will not attack the orb, but the Guardians patrol there, and will, but they are relatively easy to defeat, and if the player has access to air units, they can be cleaned up with only the loss of time, in anticipation of such an attack. * The northernmost orb for a solo player 3 is too close to a Crystal, as it is in range of one of the Crystal camp's Stonekin Hammerfall (similar to the Hammerfall unit). Stone Warrior Crystal Guardians spawn at the Crystal, not to mention the huge clump of other towers there: four Stonekin Shatterers (Deepgorge), two Stonekin Launchers, and two more Hammerfalls. Player 4's southernmost well is too close, but the Orb should be all right. Both players on the east side do not have this problem at all. If you look at the map, you can see why: the whole of the west side is actually scrunched up into a much smaller space, with the mountains and lakes bulging way over into the west. Tips & Trivia Mana Wings make the first objective no more complicated than following the map edge, for positions 3 and 4. A sufficiently large group can take out the Bandit Shaman and one group of Bandit Crossbowmen. In the east, this is not really an option, as there is an additional unit of Crossbowman and a Bandit Skyrake, and the Bandit Towers are close enough to be problematic as well. However, this only does three things: One, it destroys the walls of the fortress (but this is only a minor advantage. Two, it gives access to the Fire Shrines, but these are a double-edged sword to say the least. Also, players will still have to go north/south to claim the fortress orb, and now past increased numbers of units incoming to the main base. The third effect offers the most gain: all players now have access to all orbs on their side, albeit with their single-orb armies, and the map can be played much more like a conventional scenario, slowly advancing to take more territory as a team, while keeping a strong defense up at the main base and dodging the waves. The ultra-rare Spitfire can be used to snipe at the crystals, saving the trouble of taking out the other buildings and melee Guardians, but needs support at those crystal bases that have Aggressor - type Stonekin Crystal Guardians. The Battleship can be used for this purpose, also; its Barrage attack also has range long enough to avoid the Stone launchers. Scenario Progression Completing this scenario unlocks the following scenarios: